The thing is, Mario 2j was marketed as “for super players”, like the secret world off Star Road in SMW (Mondo, Tubular and the like). It’s meant for people for whom level 8-3 wasn’t enough and wanted a new challenge from their skills gained from mastering every inch of SMB. Remember, it was a big game then and there wasn’t a AAA games industry knocking out games of similar quality. SMB wasn’t just a good yame; it was revolutionary. At the time it was far abd away the best abd biggest video game ever made, reimagining what games could be in an age still informed by arcades. I thino it and the later Kid Icarus and Metroid were the only “black-box” games not arcade-style (King Fu was an arcade port)? The Lost Levels isn’t a “bad game” by 1986 standards! it succeeded completely in its stated purpose.